Port Talbot job losses: what’s next for British steel production?

The Celsa Steelworks in Cardiff, Wales. Scrap metal here is being sorted by quality and then put into the electric arc furnace to make ‘green steel’. Photograph: Dimitris Legakis/Athena Pictures

The government confirmed on Wednesday that a £500m rescue package for the Port Talbot steelworks, owned by Indian conglomerate Tata, would not avert the closure of its two blast furnaces and the loss of 2,500 jobs.

The only other two blast furnaces – operated by Chinese-owned British Steel at Scunthorpe – are slated for closure by the end of the year, sounding the death knell for primary (from scratch) steel-making in Britain. The UK will instead rely on imports from abroad and scrap steel fed into electric arc furnaces (EAF).